In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Obama’s 1-2 Punch?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/opinion/friedman-obamas-1-2-punch.html), Tom complains about the 2012 presidential election:
"This lousy campaign produced the worst of all outcomes: President Obama won on a platform that had little to do with our core problems and is only a small part of the solution — raising taxes on the wealthy — so he has little incentive to rethink his strategy. And the Republicans did not lose badly enough — they held the House — to have to fully rethink their strategy."
But fear not! Friedman has a solution for our current malaise:
"In the State of the Union, I’d love to see Obama lay out a detailed plan for tax reform, spending cuts and investments — to meet the real scale of our problem and spur economic growth.
. . . .
As for investment, I’d love to see the president launch us on an aspirational journey. My choice would be to connect every home and business in America to the Internet at one gigabit per second, or about 200 times faster than our current national household average, in five years."
Can you imagine pornography at the speed of light? That should set the economy aright.
Tom's conclusion:
"If only we had a second-term president, unencumbered by ever having to run again, who was ready to test what really bold leadership might produce."
Bold leadership from a president who has set new standards for procrastination? Consider his conduct of the war in Afghanistan and his refusal to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide as president, notwithstanding prior promises.
When does Friedman finally realize that an invertebrate is situated in the Oval Office.
Never. Thomas Friedman isn't interested in realization of anything new. He realized very early that only his welfare is of importance to him and humanity and has spent his life (do I have to add expressive adjectives?) securing this welfare.
ReplyDeleteBrrrr ... what a life!